354

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, vices and those of the people: in the capitol, hemight often regret the prison of Avignon ; andafter a second administration of four months,Rienzi was massacred in a tumult which hadbeen fomented by the Roman barons. In thesociety of the Germans and Bohemians, he issaid to have contracted the habits of intemper-> ance and cruelty; adversity had chilled his en-

thusiasm, without fortifying his reason or virtue;and that youthful hope, that lively assurance,which is the pledge of success, was now suc-ceeded by the cold impotence of distrust anddespair. The tribune had reigned with absolutedominion, by the choice, and in the hearts, of theRomans: the senator was the servile minister ofa foreign court; and while he was suspected bythe people, he was abandoned by the prince.The legate Albornoz, who seemed desirous ofhis ruin, inflexibly refused all supplies of menand money: a faithful subject could no longerpresume to touch the revenues of the apostoli-cal chamber; and the first idea of a tax was thesignal of clamour and sedition. Even his jus-tice was tainted with the guilt or reproach of sel-fish cruelty; the most virtuous citizen of Rome was sacrificed to his jealousy; and in the execu-tion of a public robber, from whose purse hehad been assisted, the magistrate too much for-got, or too much remembered, the obligations ofthe deblor. h A civil war exhausted his trea-

* From Matteo Villani and Fortifiocca, the P. du Cer^ean (p. 344-394) has extracted the life and death of the chevalier Montreal , thelife of a robber and the death of an hero. At the head of a free com-pany, the first that desolated Italy , he became rich and formidable;lit had money in all the banks; 60,000 ducats in Padua alone.